Search results for "Behavioral sciences"
showing 10 items of 139 documents
Computer-Mediated Communication, Social Media, and Mental Health: A Conceptual and Empirical Meta-Review
2020
Computer-mediated communication (CMC), and specifically social media, may affect the mental health (MH) and well-being of its users, for better or worse. Research on this topic has accumulated rapidly, accompanied by controversial public debate and numerous systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Yet, a higher-level integration of the multiple disparate conceptual and operational approaches to CMC and MH and individual review findings is desperately needed. To this end, we first develop two organizing frameworks that systematize conceptual and operational approaches to CMC and MH. Based on these frameworks, we integrate the literature through a meta-review of 34 reviews and a content analysi…
Reasons for qualitative psychologists to share human data
2021
ARTICLE PUBLISHED (OPEN ACCESS) IN BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY. Qualitative data sharing practices in psychology have not developed as rapidly as those in parallel quantitative domains. This is often explained by numerous epistemological, ethical, and pragmatic issues concerning qualitative data types. In this essay, I provide an alternative to the frequently expressed (often reasonable) concerns regarding the sharing of qualitative human data by highlighting three advantages of qualitative data sharing. I argue that sharing qualitative human data is not by default “less ethical,” “riskier,” and “impractical” compared to quantitative data sharing, but in some cases more ethical, le…
Interpersonal Distance in the SARS-CoV-2 Crisis
2020
Background Mandatory rules for social distancing to curb the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic require individuals to maintain a critical interpersonal distance above 1.5 m. However, this contradicts our natural preference, which is closer to 1 m for non-intimate encounters, for example, when asking a stranger for directions. Objective This review addresses how humans typically regulate interpersonal distances, in order to highlight the challenges of enforcing atypically large interpersonal distances. Method To understand the challenges posed by social distancing requirements, we integrate relevant contributions from visual perception, social perception, and human factors. Results To date, research on pr…
Visual Strategies in Analogical Reasoning Development: A New Method for Classifying Scanpaths
2013
International audience; Development of analogical reasoning is often explained by general maturation of executive functions. A consequence of the involvement of executive functions would be that children and adults differ in the visual strategies they apply when solving analogical problems. Since visual strategies can be studied by means of eye-tracking, we compared the visual scanpaths of children and adults in three different analogical reasoning tasks. This comparison was done by means of a novel technique that combined a recently developed algorithm for computing a “distance” between any pair of scanpaths (Jarodzka, Holmqvist, & Nyström, 2010), multidimensional scaling (MDS), and a neur…
Effects of Socio-Structural Variables in the Theory of Planned Behavior: A Mediation Model in Multiple Samples and Behaviors
2020
Objective. Observed variation in health behavior may be attributable to socio-structural variables that represent inequality. We tested the hypothesis that variability related to socio-structural variables may be linked to variation in social cognition determinants of health behavior. A proposed model in which effects of socio-structural variables (age, education level, gender, income) on health behavior participation was mediated by social cognition constructs was tested. Design. Model effects were tested in correlational datasets (k=13) in different health behaviors, populations, and contexts. Samples included self-report measures of age, highest attained education level, gender, and net …
Effects of self-efficacy on healthy eating depends on normative support: a prospective study of long-haul truck drivers
2017
Purpose Fruit and vegetable intake (FV) is insufficient in industrialized nations and there is excess of discretionary food choices (DC; foods high in fat, sugar, and salt). Long-haul truck drivers are considered a particularly at-risk group given the limited food choices and normatively reinforced eating habits at truck rest-stops. Self-efficacy and normative support are key determinants of eating behavior yet the processes underlying their effects on behavior are not well understood. We tested the direct and interactive effects of self-efficacy and normative support on healthy eating behaviors in long-haul truck drivers in a prospective correlational study. Method Long-haul truck drivers …
Modulation of the Endocannabinoids N-Arachidonoylethanolamine (AEA) and 2-Arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG) on Executive Functions in Human.
2013
Animal studies point to an implication of the endocannabinoid system on executive functions. In humans, several studies have suggested an association between acute or chronic use of exogenous cannabinoids (Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol) and executive impairments. However, to date, no published reports establish the relationship between endocannabinoids, as biomarkers of the cannabinoid neurotransmission system, and executive functioning in humans. The aim of the present study was to explore the association between circulating levels of plasma endocannabinoids N-arachidonoylethanolamine (AEA) and 2-Arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG) and executive functions (decision making, response inhibition and cognit…
All-Possible-Couplings Approach to Measuring Probabilistic Context.
2013
From behavioral sciences to biology to quantum mechanics, one encounters situations where (i) a system outputs several random variables in response to several inputs, (ii) for each of these responses only some of the inputs may "directly" influence them, but (iii) other inputs provide a "context" for this response by influencing its probabilistic relations to other responses. These contextual influences are very different, say, in classical kinetic theory and in the entanglement paradigm of quantum mechanics, which are traditionally interpreted as representing different forms of physical determinism. One can mathematically construct systems with other types of contextuality, whether or not …
Might as well jump: Sound affects muscle activation in skateboarding
2014
The aim of the study is to reveal the role of sound in action anticipation and performance, and to test whether the level of precision in action planning and execution is related to the level of sensorimotor skills and experience that listeners possess about a specific action. Individuals ranging from 18 to 75 years of age - some of them without any skills in skateboarding and others experts in this sport - were compared in their ability to anticipate and simulate a skateboarding jump by listening to the sound it produces. Only skaters were able to modulate the forces underfoot and to apply muscle synergies that closely resembled the ones that a skater would use if actually jumping on a ska…
Preserved Crossmodal Integration of Emotional Signals in Binge Drinking
2017
Binge drinking is an alcohol consumption pattern with various psychological and cognitive consequences. As binge drinking showed qualitatively comparable cognitive impairments to those reported in alcohol-dependence, a continuum hypothesis suggests that this habit would be a first step toward alcohol-related disorders. Besides these cognitive impairments, alcohol-dependence is also characterized by large-scale deficits in emotional processing, particularly in crossmodal contexts, and these abilities have scarcely been explored in binge drinking. Emotional decoding, most often based on multiple modalities (e.g., facial expression, prosody or gesture), yet represents a crucial ability for eff…